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Football team fans assault journalists

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(IPYS/IFEX) - On 12 November 2006, journalists Juan Manuel Allan, of "Olé" newspaper, and Osvaldo Fanjul, of television station TyC Sports, were assaulted by a group of fans of the Gimnasia y Esgrima (La Plata) football team, after a match in which the team had played. The fans beat them in a corridor near the locker rooms of the city of La Plata's municipal stadium, in eastern Argentina, while the journalists waited for the doors to the changing rooms to be opened.

The assailants attacked Allan after recognizing him as one of the reporters who had accused fans of threatening players in order to harm a rival team. Then they hit Fanjul. The police opened the doors into the changing rooms so that the reporters could escape.

Neither the team's managers nor stadium security staff were able to explain why the journalists had not been allowed into the changing rooms as soon as the match ended, as is the custom. Gimnasia y Esgrima's secretary, Carlos Jiménez, declared that the police were in charge of security. However, a source in the police force stated that one of the team's managers had ordered that the journalists not be allowed into the changing rooms.

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